The Painted Bungalow—

A Store Where You Can Shop For Creative Ideas

By Kaaren Valenta

Diana Seibold Baxter has opened the Painted Bungalow at 280 South Main Street as a showroom for her decorative painting and interior design business.

Visitors open the lavender door of the small house on the corner of South Main and Cold Spring Road, and step into a showroom where every wall, floor, and ceiling has been faux finished, or covered with murals, and trompe l’oeil finishes. Hand painted furniture fills the individual rooms, each of which has walls that show different themes. Decorative painting covers floors, fabrics, lampshades, and even furniture knobs.

The showroom is almost sensory overload but it serves as a reference point for Diana Baxter’s ideas.

“People just can’t get the same impression from looking at photographs,” she explained. “Here they can see and touch the finishes, and get a much better understanding of what I am talking about.”

The Painted Bungalow is not a gift shop nor is it a retail store. It is a showroom full of ideas, a place where homeowners can actually see what it would be like to have a faux painted ceiling or a mural painted on tumbled marble for a kitchen backsplash.

Diana Baxter launched her own business, Diane’s Design & Décor, LLC, nearly nine years ago but originally she only created hand painted decorative accessories.

“Six years ago I was at a craft show and someone asked me to [decoratively] paint their walls,” she said. “Next came floors.” Soon she was answering calls from people across Fairfield County and beyond who wanted to hire the Newtown artist to create an original look in their home.

“When people hear decorative painting, they think sponge painting but it is much more than that,” she said. “There are textured finishes, ceiling finishes, faux finishes on ceilings, painting on fabric, and so much more. I can do anything from a basic wall finish to a bathroom or kitchen remodel.

“I love to work with heavy crown molding and trims and to do the things that no one else is doing. I take the extra step to make it personal. I added interior design to my business to be able to coordinate everything.

“I am more into tearing apart a home and putting it back together than just matching pillows to wall décor [although] I do that, too. I do color consulting. And although I sell custom-painted furniture, people can also bring in their own furniture to be painted.”

One of her specialties is enabling clients to get the look they want without the expense, such as ripping up carpeting and creating painted floors directly on the subfloor, or using an inexpensive resin to get the look of stone countertops and backsplashes.

“I did a $10,000 kitchen redo that wound up looking like a $60,000 renovation,” she said.

Taunton Press was impressed with her skills and asked her to be part of its recently published decorative painting book, Paint Transformations: Do It Now, Do It Fast, Do It Right ($14.95). “So far Home Depot, Lowes, and another huge book company, a book club, have purchased nearly 30,000 copies,” she said. “I’ll have copies available at my showroom.”

It was only a year and a half ago that Diana Baxter decided to open a showroom.

“I knew I didn’t want it in a strip mall,” she said. “I came up with the name Painted Bungalow, then found this place last January. It had been filled with tiny offices and the interior was definitely 1970s.”

Months of hard work followed as she and her good friend and fellow painter Gail Harrison stripped the existing finishes in the building and began painting. “Gail helped with the entire project,” Ms Baxter said. “She and Bek Meyers now do faux painting for me.”

Ms Baxter’s husband, Steve, also helped, doing all of the carpentry on weekends.

Last weekend they held an open house for clients and friends. This Saturday there will be an open house for the public.

Sitting on the corner of the road that leads to Middle Gate School, the Painted Bungalow is decorated with window boxes filled with a profusion of colorful flowers, a white picket fence and an arbor. On the first floor is Diana Baxter’s showroom; upstairs is the showroom of Mary Villa-Lenkeit of Newtown Curtains, LLC, where clients can select styles, fabric, trims, for their window treatments.

Diana Baxter hopes to offer monthly classes on subjects that involve design inside and out. In addition to classes that she will teach, there will be guest instructors like Beth Fesco, who will teach container gardening and pot planting. Taunton Press books on the subjects will be available for purchase.

The Painted Bungalow will be open from 11 am to 5 pm Tuesday through Friday and 11 am to 3 pm on Saturday through June 30. Hours may change in the summer. For more information call 426-8797.

“I just want people to know they can come in, have a cup of coffee, sit down, look at the place and my portfolios and relax — no stress or attitudes at my store,” Ms Baxter said.